For the first time in a very long time, the Americans are underdogs. And for good reason. They've lost 4 of the last 5 Cups, and needed a near miracle at Brookline in '99 just to get that one. They were slaughtered on their home turf at Oakland Hills two years ago. Unlike most years, there are just three Americans (Tiger, Phil, Furyk) in the top the top 14 in the World Rankings, while five Euros (Garcia, Donald, Stenson, Howell, Monty) are. And the American team features four unheralded rookies with little Match Play experience.

Being big favorites hasn't worked for the US, so maybe the underdog role will serve them better. Still, the Euro team is much stronger from top to bottom ... even if the Americans have the three best individual players.

I would expect to see Lehman use the Tiger/Furyk and DiMarco/Phil pairings early and often. They are his 4 best players, and played great together in those same pairings at the Presidents Cup last year. Cink is playing great, and may be the only other US golfer to see double duty in the morning and afternoon on Fri. JJ Henry is playing great golf right now. Toms is solid. Campbell has been bad, and I watched him choke badly from about 10 feet away 2 years ago. I like Verplank to step up and play well. Z.Johnson has been good this year as well, though not great over the last 6 weeks. I can't see Vaughn Taylor or Wetterich playing more than once in the 4 Fri/Sat sessions, and may sit altogether until Sunday Singles.

Uphill battle for the US this week imo. Saw some shit on the golf channel last night about the K Club, interesting course. 16 and 18 are par 5's. Not an elite track by any means (at least by American standards), but a course built for match play.

If Im Lehman? I roll out Tiger - Furyk and Mickelson - DiMarco in the mornign and afternoon on Fri AND Sat. I play Cink with JJ Henry (as you said, both playing well, and they complement each other well) and Verplank with Toms to start and leave Cambell and the other 3 rooks on the pine Fri morning before reevaluating in the afternoon.

STRAFFAN, Ireland -- Tiger Woods was outraged Wednesday at an Irish magazine and a tabloid that linked photos of his wife to various pornography sites, and his agent was studying the merits of a lawsuit.

"My wife, yes, she has been a model prior, and she did do some bikini photos," Woods said. "But to link her to porn websites and such is unacceptable, and I do not accept that at all. Neither does our team."

The Dubliner Magazine wrote in its September issue about Elin Nordegren, his Swedish wife of nearly two years.

"Most American golfers are married to women who cannot keep their clothes on in public," the magazine wrote. "Is it too much to ask that they leave them at home for the Ryder Cup? Consider the evidence. Tiger Woods' wife can be found in a variety of sweaty poses on porn sites."

The Irish Daily Star gave it front-page treatment Wednesday with the headline, "Tiger's Fury at Naked Pictures."

Inside the tabloid, it reprinted photos of Nordegren in a bikini, along with a nude photo of a woman purported to be Nordegren. Woods vehemently denied it was his wife when it first came out three years ago.

Mark Steinberg, his agent at IMG, said he was debating whether to pursue a lawsuit.

"It's ridiculous," Steinberg said from IMG headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio. "I can't say much now because of prejudice, because I'm not sure what we'll do in the future. Everyone knew it (the nude photo) wasn't her. It's plain as day. You can see it's not factual. It's kind of ironic they bring it up this week."

It was the first topic Woods brought up at his news conference leading up to the Ryder Cup, which starts Friday at The K Club.

Woods said his anger has nothing to do with the Irish people or the gallery who have come out to the golf course, even on Wednesday when the course was closed for three hours in the morning because of 40 mph wind and rain.

"I know the media can be a little bit difficult at times, but when you ... it's hard to be very diplomatic about this when you have so much emotion involved, when my wife is involved in this," Woods said. "As I said, I don't want that to deter from the beauty of this event."

Woods said making public his feelings was a matter of sticking up for his wife.

"You do things for the people you love and you care about," Woods said. "My father got ridiculed for years, and I always felt for my father and my mother the same way. My wife, we're in it together. We're a team, and we do things as a team. And I care about her with all my heart."

No real surprises. Almost exactly what I woulda done if I was Lehman. Start with your strongest group, the two top ranked players in the world. End with your B Team, Phil and DiMarco. I love the Cink/Henry pairing. Mildly surprised Lehman went with the long hitting rookie Wetterich to pair with Toms. Wetterich has struggled as of late, but his length could be huge in the alternate shot, and Lehman needs to see what he has early in him. If he struggles, we wont see him again till Sunday singles.

The United States of America cannot win anything in international competitions anymore. Our basketball team just recieved their latest annual embarrassment at the World Games. Our baseball team was a miserable flop at the World Baseball Classic. Our soccer team? Let's not even go there.

As frustrating as all the aforementioned failures were, the poster boys for American incompetence on the international stage are the United States Ryder Cup team, who were soundly spanked once again by the Europeans this weekend. The 18 1/2 to 9 1/2 trouncing matched the biggest margin of victory ever, set two years ago on American soil at Oakland Hills just outside Detroit. A beating I witnessed live and in person. The Euros also this year became the first team ever to win all five sessions, and amazingly lost just six of the twenty eight total matches in this years event. Europe has now won the last three Cups, and five of the last six events. Were it not for the miracle comeback at Brookline in 1999, the Americans would be in the midst of a thirteen year winless streak.

What the hell has gone wrong? We're Americans god dammit. We should be carving through these fruity Euros the same way our armed forces tore through Baghdad and the "Iraqi Army". As Americans, we're accustomed not just to winning ... but to winning soundly. We've had the best golfers in the world in this country since the beginning of time. And despite having the top three golfers in the world, that just simply isn't the case anymore. And that's what makes this latest loss even more frustrating.

The Euros, with their hobbit captain, lavender uniforms, and a roster loaded with smug pricks like Colin Montgomerie, Paul Casey, and Sergio Garcia ... just gave us a serious ass kicking. And in the process, left no doubt that Europe is now home to the worlds best golfers. They outplayed us so badly in all aspects of the game, then made big putt after big putt while their American counterparts fell apart under the pressure once again, missing nearly every putt of significance outside of ten feet. Simply put, this was the most lopsided Ryder Cup in the eighty year history of the event, and the 2006 Euro squad will be remembered as the most dominant squad in the long history of this history rich event.

For the Americans, the future looks just as bleak as the final scoreboard looked today. Tiger will always be Tiger, and one can only suspect that this years 3-2 record is a harbringer of better things to come from him in this event after a 7-11-2 record to start his Ryder Cup career. But he is one golfer, and this is a team event. Mickelson, DiMarco, Furyk, Toms, Cink, and Verplank all have terrible career match play records, and are cascading into ... and for most of them ... past the ages that most men play their most competitive golf during. Zach Johnson and J.J. Henry showed some things this weekend, but the bottom line is this: the lack of emerging young star American golfers right now is mind boggling.

When Tiger Woods burst on the scene in the mid nineties, the popularity of the game of golf amongst youths and minorities in this country absolutely exloded. Most analysts predicted that we would see a dynamic wave of talented young American players emerge from the pipeline around this time. Where are they? I look at the Euro squad and see kids like Garcia, Donald, Casey, Harrington, Howell, and Stenson ... and see no answer over here on the right side of the pond.

Underdogs this year for the first time in ages in this event, the Americans better start getting used to it.